Demands for increased productivity and performance of agricultural tillage and seeding machines as soil tilling implements or combination cultivating and sowing machines have resulted in large, heavy machines. Such machines include, in particular, soil tilling implements and cultivating machines such as plows, harrows, cultivators, rotary hoes, and the like as well as planters, sowing machines and drilling machines, or combined cultivating and sowing machines, which combine several of the aforementioned implements. The increasing size of these machines and implements results in added weight that needs to be distributed to as large a ground contact area as possible to reduce soil compaction. To distribute the load, two-wheel arrangements are often utilized to create a larger contact area. Two-wheel arrangements generally have a corresponding axle suspension with two wheel axles arranged to move or pivot vertically to adjust to the changing ground contour of irregular ground surfaces.
Many implements have drive arrangements which serve to drive an attachment, such as an agitator or a metering device for fertilizers or seed, for example. Such drive arrangements often utilize drive from a ground engaging wheel, whether in a two-wheel arrangement or a single-wheel arrangement, connected through a drivetrain to the driven device on the implement.
In wheel arrangements having pivoting axles, drive arrangements must have power transferring mechanisms which can adjust to the movements of the wheel axles and the axle beams. Typically, a universal joint, tapered toothed or bevel gearing is utilized to accommodate the pivoting movements of the wheel. Such solutions, however, are sophisticated in design and are expensive to manufacture.